Reply #9: Operation Iraqi Liberation [View All]

[bpilgrim]

i'm sure it looked good on the white board and powerpoints...

At the opening of Barbarossa, the war seemed a long ways off, and of little immediate concern to the citizens of Stalingrad. Although most young men were away serving with the military, life continued as it always had. But by the middle of August,1942, the Stalingrad City Soviet began giving consideration to evacuating children and non-essential civilians.

However, the bulk of the population was still in the city in late August when the battle got underway. The Luftwaffe sent Luftflotte 4 to commence air raids on the city, and the first of these set downtown Stalingrad aflame, reducing much of it to rubble. With central Stalingrad in flames, the editors of the local paper put together an improvised edition of Stalingrad Pravda. On a hand-cranked press, without power, they printed out a one page edition with a banner headline proclaiming, "We Will Smash the Enemy at the Gates of Stalingrad!" Over 40,000 civilians were killed in these first raids, and an evacuation began in earnest. The Luftwaffe commanders recognized that the boat traffic taking civilians across the Volga was also shuttling reinforcements into the city. German pilots strafed and bombed the landing in a concerted effort to panic the civilians flocked on the shore.

Thousands more died under the bombs and guns, but the ferry traffic continued unabated.

The first elements of the 6th Army breached the city in the northern residential suburb of Rynok. Gen. Hans Hube's 16th Panzer division was the first to reach the banks of the Volga, and Stalingrad was boxed in from the north. The Luftwaffe continued to pound the city into rubble, and Stalingrad would continue to burn for the next few months. The first of many bizarre, grotesque sights emerged as the inmates of the insane asylum came out of the ruins, wandering dazed and naked through the streets.

more...
http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/stalingrad/death.aspx

peace